"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."
Edmund Burke. What happened on this Day in History?

Thursday, April 19, 2012

This Day in Southern African History: 19 April, 1906 - The Bambatha Rebellion

In the years following the Anglo-Boer War white employers in Natal had difficulty recruiting black farm workers because of increased competition from the gold mines of the Witwatersrand. The colonial authorities introduced a £1 poll tax
in addition to the existing hut tax to encourage black men to enter the
labour market. Bambatha, who ruled about 5,500 people living in about
1,100 households, was one of the chiefs who resisted the introduction
and collection of the new tax.

The government of Natal sent police officers to collect the tax from recalcitrant districts, and in February 1906 two white officers were killed near Richmond, KwaZulu-Natal. In the resulting introduction of martial law, Bambatha fled north to consult King Dinizulu, who gave tacit support to Bambatha and invited him and his family to stay at the royal homestead.

Bambatha returned to the Mpanza Valley to discover that the Natal
government had deposed him as chief. He gathered together a small force
of supporters and began launching a series of guerrilla attacks, using the Nkandla forest as a base. Following a series of initial successes, colonial troops under the command of Colonel Duncan McKenzie set out on an expedition in late April 1906.

Once they succeeded in getting face to face with and surrounding the
rebels at Mome Gorge, the British victory in the unequal battle was
inevitable, given the vast disparity of forces. As the sun rose,
colonial soldiers opened fire with machine guns and cannon, on rebels
mostly armed only with traditional assegais (spears), knobkerries (fighting sticks) and cowhideshields.

Bambatha was killed and beheaded during the battle; however, many of
his supporters believed that he was still alive, and his wife refused to
go into mourning. Bambatha's main ally, the 95-year-old Zulu aristocratInkosi Sigananda Shezi of the amaCube clan (cousin and near-contemporary of the Zulu king Shaka) was captured by the colonial troops and died a few days later.

Between 3,000 and 4,000 Zulus were killed during the revolt (some of
whom died fighting on the side of the Natal government). More than 7,000
were imprisoned, and 4,000 flogged. King Dinizulu was arrested and
sentenced to four years imprisonment for treason.

Mahatma Gandhi's roleMohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was in South Africa at the time, felt that the Indians in South Africa would do best for themselves to serve the British Empire as a reserve force in the Army against the Zulu uprising.[3]
Gandhi actively encouraged the British to recruit Indians. He argued
that Indians should support the war efforts in order to legitimise their
claims to full citizenship. The British, however, refused to commission
Indians as army officers. Nonetheless, they accepted Gandhi's offer to
let a detachment of Indians volunteer as a stretcher bearer
corps to treat wounded British soldiers. This corps of 21 was commanded
by Gandhi. Gandhi urged the Indian population in South Africa to join
the war through his columns in Indian Opinion: “If the Government
only realised what reserve force is being wasted, they would make use
of it and give Indians the opportunity of a thorough training for actual
warfare.”[4]
Later in 1927 he wrote of the event as "No war but a man hunt."
Gandhi's ambulance corp was the only one taking care of the wounded
Zulus[5].

Commemoration

In 2006, the hundredth anniversary of the rebellion was commemorated in a ceremony which declared Chief Bambatha a national hero of post-Apartheid South Africa. Also, his picture appeared on a postage stamp and a street was renamed in his honor.

According to speeches in the ceremony, the beheaded body had not
really been Bambatha's and the actual chief succeeded in escaping to Mozambique. This belief is still widely current; a DNA test of his alleged body failed to give a definite answer.